Hell

[muhtesem insan]

It is when that list of verses supports that particular view.

[annatar]

So, please explain what those good reasons are.

Because bible says so. I would think hell is eternal punishment had I believe in bible.. But of course if you don't believe those passages are the word of god...

when properly interpreted,

"some to everlasting life, and others to shame and everlasting abhorrence"
"and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Could you please explain those verses. What could they really meant?! You are only fooling yourselves. Christianity, as any other religion, trying to scare people in order to control them and hell is very convenient tool for it.

[Zen Badger]

A list of verses is not an argument for a particular view - you actually have to give good reasons why those verses, when properly interpreted, support that view. So, please explain what those good reasons are.

I love it when christians do the "when properly interpreted" fandango.

I don't like what this bit implies so lets properly interpret it 'til it means something we like.

[Matthew]

So, please explain what those good reasons are.

Because bible says so. I would think hell is eternal punishment had I believe in bible.. But of course if you don't believe those passages are the word of god...

The Bible says things like "some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting abhorrence". The Bible doesn't say "some to everlasting conscious joy, others to everlasting conscious torment". Do you see the difference? (Hint: the latter is an interpretation.)

"some to everlasting life, and others to shame and everlasting abhorrence"
"and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Could you please explain those verses. What could they really meant?!

I'll start with Daniel 12:2. As noted above, the contrast is not between two different modes of living (one in joy, the other in torment) but between life and abhorrence. As it's usage in Isaiah 66:24 demonstrates, 'abhorrence' is the response of God's people to the dead bodies of those who have rebelled against Him. Moreover, by referring to "dust of the earth" and subsequent shame, the text explicitly refers back to Genesis 2-3, where God promises that those who rebel against Him "will surely die". Indeed, in order to experience conscious torment, one must necessarily be alive, making the traditional interpretation contrasting eternal life and with eternal conscious torment absurd. The obvious and natural contrast is between life and death, death of course being an eternal state if there is no hope of future resurrection.

Then Matthew 13:42. This verse is part of Jesus' explanation of the Parable of the Weeds (in the same chapter). In that parable, the fate of the weeds is clear - they will be incinerated and thus destroyed in the fire. The language of the fiery furnace and wailing and gnashing of teeth is in reference to Gehenna (which is the word actually translated as Hell by some modern versions) - Jerusalem's dump outside the city (hence the reference, since the whole point of the parable is the fate of those who are inside and outside the Kingdom) where fire constantly burned and dogs ravaged the corpses of dead animals.

---

I love it when christians do the "when properly interpreted" fandango.

I don't like what this bit implies so lets properly interpret it 'til it means something we like.

Equally the charge could be made that some non-Christians (even atheists in this thread who have come out as ardent supporters of the eternal conscious torment view) interpret Scripture to mean something that they don't like. Is that charge any less baseless than yours?

Also, is annihilation really something that we like? It might be an ever so slightly more pleasant concept than eternal conscious torment, but it's not exactly a comforting thing to think about. If I'm really just interpreting Scripture to mean something I want it to mean, why don't I just go the whole hog and say that everyone will be fine in the end? (Oh, because that's an untenable interpretation...a bit like eternal conscious torment.)

[Ervin]

Mathew, I was just wandering do you belong to any denomination or you are a non denominational?

Thanks

[Matthew]

Mathew, I was just wandering do you belong to any denomination or you are a non denominational?

Thanks

I am non-denominational.

[DeistPaladin]

Equally the charge could be made that some non-Christians (even atheists in this thread who have come out as ardent supporters of the eternal conscious torment view) interpret Scripture to mean something that they don't like. Is that charge any less baseless than yours?

I can't speak for other non-believers but I take the view that scripture says whatever the reader wants it to say by process of selective reading, selective contextualizing and other tactics to support their own bias. Read cover-to-cover, it's a long, rambling and self-contradictory book. It provides no clear picture as to what the afterlife is going to be, what you have to do to achieve what fate in the afterlife, or even if there is one.

I've yet to know a single believer who didn't see Jesus as a glorified version of themselves. Jesus was a liberal. Jesus was a conservative. Jesus was gay. Jesus was straight. Jesus was black. Jesus was white. Jesus was a communist. Jesus was a capitalist. Jesus was whoever you want him to be and the Bible says what you want it to say.

[Jaysyn]

Reason why I believe in one God and not any more is because like the deist Bob Johnson said that there can be only one supreme of everything.

You may as well worship Zeus for all the logic in that statement. He was, after all, the supreme God of that pantheon. Hell, Odin & Zeus had other, lesser gods that did as they commanded (for the most part).

[Ervin]

Deist Paladin, do you believe that after life is possible? If so what would your beliefs on it be?

Thanks

[DeistPaladin]

Deist Paladin, do you believe that after life is possible? If so what would your beliefs on it be?

Thanks

Possible? Yes.

Likely? We don't have enough information to go on.

I think the answer will come from the field of neuroscience. The question should be what is it that is the cause of our consciousness, the "I" when we say "I am". I would love to read biology textbooks that will be written 1,000 years from now.

If consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, then the prognosis doesn't look good for the afterlife. On the other hand, if there is some kind of x-factor that interacts with the brain, it might survive the process of death. We really don't know enough about the nature of consciousness to say for sure at this point.

If there is some sort of enigmatic force that is the core of our being, a "soul" for lack of a better term, I expect that such a force is dependent on the brain to interact with the physical world. We do know that we store and access memory through the brain as well as gather and interpret sensory data within it. These functions can be lost or inhibited if the brain is ever damaged, either through disease or injury.

This is why, as much as I would like to believe in some sort of Heaven-esque place where we see our departed loved ones again, it doesn't seem likely. Memory can be lost prior to death from injury or illness. There's no reason to hope it would survive the complete destruction of the brain.

Like you, I find Hell even less unlikely. It would have to rely on a god who demands worship and yet hides from his creation. The motive of such a god is impossible to understand and it seems far more likely to be a carrot-stick approach by priests to command faith and obedience, which they profit from. Additionally, we adapt to whatever environment we are in so that Hell would eventually become something we're accustomed to.

I like the idea of reincarnation and it fits well with the cycles we see all about us in the universe. I can explain our lack of memory of previous lives, since that would have been destroyed in the last brain we occupied. Growing and diminishing populations is the biggest flaw in the model but perhaps time is not as linear as we think it is. The "next life" might be concurrent with this one.

Then again, I'm also prepared to accept that God gives us one shot at the brass ring.